I'm glad of that, because the news broken by Colombia Reports last week is both important and being ignored by the mainstream media. It needs more light shone upon it, and it also suggests you people out there know how to avoid the guff and nonsense IKN posts and concentrate on the bits worth reading.

Dear people at Kitco, here's some advice on how to bring your website philosophy kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Let's get the DON'T items out the way first:

1) Do NOT force a pop-up on visitors. You are stuck in 2002, the rest of us live in 2015, so get with the freakin' program and be aware how utterly intrusive and annoying pop-ups are.

2) Do NOT ask open questions, especially when you've just annoyed someone with a freakin' pop-up. Because you get smart-assed replies like this one...

...and I'm 100% sure you've been receiving all sorts of lewd suggestions on how Daniela Cambone can improve viewer numbers as well (and I'm sure about that because some of you horrid animalist mining people have mailed me and told me what you wrote).

So, now to what you should have done, Kitco marketing dumbasses:

1) Stick a big fat banner on the top of your page: "Become a Kitco Privilege Member". And on the banner there "FREE SIGN UP!". Leave it there for a week or two and people who regularly come over will eventually voluntarily click through and find out what the gig is about. And you annoy nobody. In this way you avoid all the bad vibes from that freakin' pop-up and the people clicking the big banner will likely sign up their mail address, because they'll also be people who actually like the page and the service. Plus you're offering them something FOR FREE. That might only be the chance to become a "member of the kitco family" or whatever, but it's the entry point.

2) Once they've signed up, about a week later when you've harvested a few thousand mail addresses mail them and ask if they'd be interested in a service for which they pay a very small monthly fee and you offer them extra content, special services, whatever you want to throw in the package.

3) As part of the inquiry mail, give them a box in which they can offer suggestions. In this way you've just spared Cambone a whole lot of blushes and you've also received a few decent ideas.

Et Voila! You get your hardcore visitors loving you a bit more, you get your survey, you find out whether the fee paying service idea will fly and most of all you've not pissed any of your regular visitors off by doing it. Unlike your sad-face efforts this week.

It's long past the time when we as a society stopped ignoring both causes and effects of mental illnesses such as severe depression, and stopped sweeping them under the carpet. With the word Germanwings now instantly connected to horror, rather than positive concepts such as cheap and convenient travel, your humble scribe won't get much pushback by stating that they're not just dangerous for the person concerned.

As for the Germanwings flight, may they all rest in peace. Tragedy is an overused word, but there's no better (worse?) example. A terrible sequence of events that's been breaking my heart all week, let's hope we can learn something from the events and get just a little better at this living together thing as a result.

UPDATE: This is forwarded to your humble scribe by reader WW. Specifically about the security threat of the renegade crew member and their security door, it's written by Philip Baum (his website here) and it's well worth your eyetime:

Germanwings 9525:

the challenge of suicidal pilots behind intrusion-proof cockpit doors

by Philip Baum

On 17th February 2014, Hailemedhin Abera Tegegn hijacked an Ethiopian Airlines flight, on which he was serving as First Officer, to Geneva. Tegegn exploited the window of opportunity afforded him when the Captain exited the flight deck for a toilet break, bolting the flight deck door closed from the inside in order that he could take complete command of the aircraft. When the Captain tried to return to the flight deck, he found that he was locked out; he, the rest of the crew and passengers, simply prayed that Tegegn was not suicidal as they banged on the door hoping to gain access. They were lucky that Tegegn was simply seeking asylum. On 20th March this year, in absentia, Tegegn was sentenced to 19 years and 6 months in prison by the Ethiopian courts for the hijacking.

The incident highlighted three security challenges the industry faces. Firstly, the fact that the enhanced flight deck door, designed to keep potential hijackers outside the cockpit, can also prevent crew and passengers overpowering an intruder, or pilot, should they manage to lock themselves inside. Secondly, the reality of the 'insider threat' whereby a, presumably, 'trusted' and vetted individual can become the assailant. And, thirdly, that we have to start to acknowledge that aviation security is not just a counterterrorist operation and that, as such, we need to be able to identify negative intent of whatever kind and wherever it can impact upon the safety and security of our operations.

Granted that the Ethiopian Airlines incident ended without loss of life, procedures did not change as a result. Additionally, I believe that the fact that it was an Ethiopian airliner (as opposed to a European or American carrier), en route to Rome from Addis Ababa, resulted in less media interest and industry disregard. The end result could have been so different; the Ethiopian hijacking took place only three months after Captain Hermino dos Santos Fernandes crashed the Mozambique Airlines aircraft he was piloting (from Maputo to Luanda, Angola) in Namibia. The cockpit voice recorder showed that the co-pilot had been locked outside the flight deck and was desperately trying to get into the cockpit when the aircraft impacted with the ground, killing all on board.

What was the global response to that incident? None. Why? Probably because it was an African carrier flying between Mozambique and Angola.

Pilot suicide is not commonplace, but it is not unheard of. The frequency is, however, certainly far greater than the number of times suicidal terrorists have commandeered aircraft and flown them into population centres. The higher profile incidents of Royal Air Maroc, SilkAir, and EgyptAir are often cited as the rare examples of such action impacting commercial aviation, but unstable pilots operating in the General Aviation or recreational arena, have often chosen to perform acts termed 'aircraft-assisted suicide'. According to a Federal Aviation Administration report on the phenomena in the United States, published in February 2014, "From 2003-2012, there were 2,758 fatal aviation accidents; the NTSB determined that 8 were aircraft-assisted suicides (all involving the intentional crashing of an aircraft)".

The loss of Germanwings flight 9525 whilst en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf on 24th March this year is likely to be an industry game changer, primarily because it was a German carrier (owned by Lufthansa), operating from Spain and crashing in France. Within hours of the announcement that the First Officer, Andreas Lubitz, had intentionally crashed the airliner, some carriers were changing their procedures so that there would, henceforth, always be two crewmembers on the flight deck - a long-standing recommended practice; should a pilot need to exit the cockpit, a flight attendant would be required to take their place. On shorter flights, this can be quite a challenge given the workload on the cabin crew mid-flight. Yet we still don't know why Lubitz crashed the aircraft and we are basing decisions on cockpit voice recorder data which should not, at such an early stage, even have been made public; the revelations were in breach of globally accepted international accident investigation processes.

Regardless, calls from within the industry emerged within hours of the branding of Lubitz the culprit and they ranged from mandating the periodic psychological assessments of pilots to considering enabling people on the ground to be able to override the door locking system. Hopefully, however, there will be no knee-jerk reaction and common sense will prevail. Firstly, in order to plan for the future we need to know the full details of what took place on the flight deck of Germanwings 9525 and that information will take months to amass. Flying an aircraft directly into a mountainside in the French Alps will certainly have made it difficult, if not impossible, to effect a detailed forensic examination of Lubitz's corpse. Secondly, the best lesson we can learn from the past is the need to avoid panic reactions. After all, as I wrote in an article in Aviation Security International last April regarding the loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which may yet also be proved to be the result of pilot suicide, "One of the most significant concerns about the knee-jerk reaction to install reinforced flight deck doors in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks is that, whilst it may keep the bad guys out of the cockpit, it can also keep the good guys out too."

The flight deck door is opened far too frequently in flight. Granted the huge outlay the industry made on such a sophisticated locking and strengthening system, we need much more vigorous protocols for their usage. The industry has resisted calls to have secondary barriers, or doors, despite the relatively low price tag on their installation. Rather, we have an access/egress system which is rarely performed in accordance with recommended practice and where complacency is often the order of the day.

Inflight security procedures need to be rigorously enforced. The consequences of a laissez faire attitude to the last line of defence can be catastrophic. But, let's wait until we know what did happen before we make irreversible decisions and procurements. Also, we must also recognise that we can take all the steps in the world to try to secure our aircraft yet still fall victim to the actions of one individual who does not appear on our radar screen as a threat...especially if he or she is at the controls.

Yup that's a very, very good question. Click though and read more, including the F.A.I.R. report on the total lack of coverage of this subject by US media.

IKN adds an observation: Since the story was broken in English by Colombia Reports on Monday (kudos to Adriaan Alsema) and your humble scribe pointed your eyes its way via this post, there have been dozens of hits from many different US Defense Department sites, including Washington DC head offices and forts scattered all over the USA. They've been constant all week and it's the first time ever that the US military have cared so much about this backwater site.

Something to hide, officer? Something you don't want the world to read there, soldier?

PS: To repeat and underscore: This important story of U.S military raping at least 54 Colombians between the years 2003 and 2007 including underage girls (which is getting plenty of coverage down this end of the Americas landmass) was broken by Colombia Reports in this note on Monday. The site and its editor, Adriaan Alsema deserves recognition and respect for the job well done.

Apart from a financial charge taken that turned a projected small profit into an actual small loss for 4q14, this was your box standard in-line quarter. You can sum up 2015 guidance as "Hey, you see what we did in 2014? We're doing the same in 2015", so if you're looking for price catalysts it's either that new fangled 144 zone or the gold price. The value purchase isn't at this current price level (and I don't own personally) it's more around the 90c area, but if you like your gold miners small and solid there are worse out there. A well-run miner that got its act together nicely in 2014.NR here

3/25/15

We start here, with a basic earnings overview chart for GORO that shows the quarterly evolution for revenues, costs and the resulting gross profit for the last two years:

See that big drop in revenues in 3q14? Back when it announced its 3q14 numbers, here's how GORO explained the revenues shortfall in its news release (IKN highlighting in red):

“The Company delivered weaker than expected quarterly operating results with production levels approximately 24% lower in the quarter compared to the quarterly average of the first half of 2014,” stated Gold Resource Corporation’s CEO and President, Mr. Jason Reid. “The Company has implemented new mine management in 2 response to these unsatisfactory results and believes that fourth quarter production can rebound, which puts the lower range of the Company’s 2014 Outlook within reach. We stockpiled much of our high-grade gold and silver concentrates produced during the quarter in preparation for pouring Doré bars in our new Doré facility, which we began commissioning at the end of the quarter and which increased our unsold inventories. We recorded a $(0.03) per share loss which was contributed by unsold concentrate inventory as a result of stockpiling the high-grade concentrates for the Doré facility process. These inventoried ounces are planned to be processed and sold during the fourth quarter as Doré bars

And indeed, if we check out the evolution of the inventories of concentrates as reported per quarter by GORO, we see a pattern that matches the statement. For five previous quarters to 2q14 concentrates held in inventory were at or under $1m. Then in 3q14 the number jumped to $3.4m. We can then see that GORO was apparently true to its word about processing the extra in 4q14 because the number dropped back most (though not all) of the way, with 4q14 filing $1.481m in inventory of concentrates.

If we then look to the production and sales of silver, the pattern also matches.

Above you see how production tends to be higher than sales, which is normal enough. We also see how in 3q14, production and sales of silver dropped sharply. Then finally in 4q14 production rebounded but in this quarter, sales actually managed to outstrip production. That's just what you'd expect from a company that was working through its unsold inventory during the quarter.

However, when we get to gold something strange happens:

Again we see how gold production is typically higher than gold sales (to cut a long story short, GORO has middlemen to pay so that's understandable). We also see how in 3q14 production dropped sharply and sales even more so. That matches its explanation in the 3q14 filings about the plans to run it via the new doré circuit and also matches the inventory spike.

BUT! Come 4q14 we see two things that don't fit at all. Firstly, production fails to recover to previous levels. Secondly (and most importantly) sales are still lagging way behind, even more than in a typical quarter in fact, when by all rights we should have seen the extra unsold gold from 3q14 make up the gap and even outstrip the production total, in the same way as we saw in the silver table above. If you asked me for a best guess, I'd say there were at least 3,000 Au ounces of negative reconciliation in the numbers published by GORO, maybe even 4k oz Au.

Somewhere else you see the gap in the numbers is when considering the revenues numbers filed by GORO per quarter. This chart shows the filed revenues in the darker green bars. It also shows "calculated revenues" and that's something that needs a line or three of explanation

In its quarterly filings and thanks to the US markets' system getting more disclosure out of companies than the Toronto guys, GORO gives us the amount of each metal sold as well as the realized price for each metal. From those data it's easy enough to calculate a raw revenue total for each metal, then add 'em up. That little sum gives you the "calculated revenues" light green bar you see in that above chart.

If you stare at the chart a bit you see that the "real revs" number is typically slightly lower than the "calc revs" number, and again that's okay by me as long as it's a typical trend. But again you see in 3q14 a big difference between the two numbers in 3q14 (in fact a 21.4% difference, when the average for the previous ten quarters was 9.6%). And again where you might expect a better than normal revenues number reported for 4q14 as GORO reports its catch-up sales, there's nothing to show.

And by the way of a slight sidebar, one of the weirdest things about this company these days is how it gets more of its revenue from the zinc, lead and copper base metals credits than it does from silver or gold. This chart (based on the "calculated revs" numbers) shows how Gold Resource Corp has only ever been "gold" in name, as silver's always been its greatest revenue generator. But even the cash from Ag was surpassed in 4q14 by the Zn/Pb/Cu base metals combo. Gold the metal was a mere 22% of its revenue source in Q4.

There are other charts I could show you but at some point it gets to offering up too much information. The suspiciously low realized price for gold in 4q14. The costs pop in 4q14. Etc etc. The bottom line story here is the one that counts, that of the apparently missing revenues for gold at GORO in 4q14.

Inventories went up in 3q14, then down again in 4q14.

Silver sales dropped in 3q14, then made up for the quarter with extra sales in 4q14.

But gold sales didn't. For reasons known only GORO insiders, the amount of gold sold is much less than it should have been, even accounting for the poor Au production in the six month period.

In IKN306 this weekend (well, Monday evening this time) I made mention of Red Eagle Mining (RD.v) and its Colombia gold project for what (I think) was the first time, mainly due to the permits it had received from the Colombian government. The very last line of that brief-ish note was...

"If
the capex arrives and it's equity-friendly

it may become a trade, but not
before that."

...sotoday's news is more than interesting, because it's a massive step to getting the gig fully funded. In ballpark terms and what we'll be left with, assuming the side-by-side $15m placement happens correctly, is a company with around 140m shares out and all the cash it needs (approx $80m, which was my own best guess in IKN306) to build a mine. We've always got to be wary of the details in financing deals (there be devils a-lurkin') but this summary from today's NR is what we know so far:

The Credit Facility includes the following key terms:

Draw down of the Credit Facility is subject to Red Eagle Mining completing an additional equity financing of at least US $15,000,000 ("Equity Financing");

The Credit Facility will have a five year term with a principal holiday and capitalized interest for up to 18 months from the first advance;

Advances under the Credit Facility will bear interest at LIBOR +7.5%;

A Production Payment of US $30 per ounce produced is payable on the first 405,000 ounces of gold produced;

Granting of 5,000,000 warrants to purchase Shares to Orion exercisable for a five year term at a strike price determined in the context of the Equity Financing; and

Amounts outstanding under the Credit Facility will be secured against all of Red Eagle Mining's property and assets.

Interest on secured debt plus "production payment" plus juicy warrants, clearly the money people at Orion (the ex-Red Kite people) aren't giving their cash away here, as that's a financier-friendly deal if ever I saw one. What we the grunts at the bottom of the food chain need to decide is whether there's enough love left once the big money has been paid off to buy the stock at 30c and on that one I simply don't know yet, there's numberwork to do. But you can't fault RD.v for moving forward, something that hundreds of juniors have abjectly failed to do in the last few years.

PS: OK, that was too short and more than a little facetious, so let me tell you something about Iwnattos over at Market Narrative. After following the dude's blog for many moons I can say that some of his stuff I agree with, some leaves me agnostic, other times I think he's spouting pure crap and gets me wondering what he'd been smoking just before hitting send. But he never fails to get me thinking, which is the number one thing I want from any regular reading material. His viewpoint of the market isn't just different from mine, it's different from just about anyone I've come across and that's the reason above all others that he's nothing short of must-read material in my working life. You can read all the bias-confirming cookie-cutter market prose and commentary that you want, I'll go with the original brainwork every time no matter if I agree with the specific daily content on show or not.

Plus when it comes to Iwnattos's chart calls they're probably a wash over time, but there's a certain type of specific stock call on technicals only that he makes which have a very high success rate. His post today about Dalradian (DNA.to) is one of them. So, ladies and gentlemen readers, do yourself a favour and pay attention, too.

"The image of Romero is everywhere in El Salvador, from a mural within the international airport which now bears his name, to the walls of houses in remote hamlets in the countryside. It is evidence of how profound was the impact of this man of God who walked hand-in-hand with the oppressed and the poor in the country. It was his commitment to justice rooted in faith which put him on the path to martyrdom at the hands of a death squad assassin."

Go read it all here, plus check out the links offered to the Oscar Romero photo galleries.

Yesterday afternoon, the Chilean environmental tribunal handed down a decision on glaciers at the Barrick Pascua Lama gold project on the Chile/Argentina border. As it was a favourable ruling for the company, within about 14 nanosecondsthey'd released this NR on the subject:

"Preserving and protecting glaciers from harm is essential to the work we do every day at Pascua-Lama," said Eduardo Flores, Barrick's Executive Director for Chile. "That is why Barrick worked with leading independent experts and glaciologists to develop and implement one of the most rigorous glacier monitoring programs anywhere in the world. We are pleased that the court has confirmed what the technical and scientific evidence demonstrates, that these ice bodies have not been damaged by activities at the Pascua-Lama project."

Barrick remains committed to working with stakeholders and local communities in Chile to advance Pascua-Lama in an environmentally responsible manner, respecting its legal and regulatory requirements.

The Pascua-Lama team is focused on resolving the project's outstanding legal and regulatory hurdles, completing a new execution plan to optimize remaining construction activities and minimizing ongoing project costs.

Good news travels quickly and bad news travels slowly, they say. ABX has never been this sharp on Pascua Lama news when the calls go against the company but hey, can't really blame them for that. Anyway, what's notable about the ABX news release isn't what's in there but what's not in there. Let's start with that headline, "Chile's Environmental Court Rejects Claims that Pascua-Lama has Damaged Glaciers", as it's more than a little misleading:

1) When ABX says "glaciers" the nicely-worded implication is "all glaciers" in the project's area of influence, an idea that's reinforced in the body of the NR. In fact, we're only talking about three specific and small bodies of ice water here, the Toro 1, Toro 2 and Esperanza zones, plus the Toro river as a run-off of those three. This map shows Toro 1 and Toro 2 marked (Esperanza is right next to them but not marked) plus the Toro river, which runs off to both the Chile and Argentina side.

2) Toro 1, Toro 2 and Esperanza are not even true glaciers. They are in fact technically speaking "periglaciers" which are zones of ice that collect around real glaciers, are not deep and tend to ebb and grow rapidly (or relatively rapidly in glacier-time). They are the bodies of water closest to the Pascua Lama mine border but they're by far from the only ones and they're also very small compared to the real glaciers in the area of direct influence that you see marked (the Guanaco, Amarillo, Los Amarillos and Estrecho, all noted on the above map).

3) This court action was brought by locals specifically concerning the Toro 1, Toro 2 and Esperanza periglaciers. Now for sure it's a win for ABX that the Chilean court has ruled in its favour here, but don't think for a second that it's all over for the company because they have a whole stack of litigation to get through yet on this subject, with most cases carrying far more gravitas than the one so quickly trumpeted yesterday.

The moral of this story is ultimately the typical one you need to use when reading any mining company NR, not just ABX and not just about Pascua Lama: Don't swallow the company line whole. Ever. It's bad for your financial health if you do.

3/23/15

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Mar 23, 2015) - Ross J. Beaty, of 1550 - 625 Howe Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6C 2T6, today announced that on March 23, 2015 he acquired ownership of 28,000,000 units (the "Units") of Savary Gold Corp. (the "Corporation") at a purchase price of CDN$0.05 per Unit for an aggregate purchase price of CDN$1,400,000. Each Unit is comprised of one common share in the capital of the Corporation (a "Common Share") and one-half of one share purchase warrant (each whole share purchase warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant is exercisable into one Common Share for a period of 36 months from issuance at an exercise price of CDN$0.08. Mr. Beaty acquired ownership through a private placement transaction in reliance on the accredited investor exemption set out in section 2.3 of National Instrument 45-106Prospectus and Registration Exemptions.

Mr. Beaty owns 28,000,000 Common Shares and 14,000,000 Warrants. The 28,000,000 Common Shares represent approximately 19.9% of the total number of issued and outstanding Common Shares. If all of Mr. Beaty's Warrants were exercised, Mr. Beaty would own approximately 27.2% of the then issued and outstanding Common Shares.

Mr. Beaty's acquisition was made for investment purposes. Mr. Beaty may, in the future, acquire ownership and control over additional securities of Savary Gold Corp. for investment purposes.

Colombia Reports has the big story in LatAm today about the recently declassified documents of sexual abuse by U.S. military personnel in Colombia on underaged girls between the years 2003 and 2007. Here's an excerpt:

In his report, the historian cited one 2004 case in the central Colombian town of Melgar where 53 underage girls were sexually abused by nearby stationed military contractors “who moreover filmed [the abuse] and sold the films as pornographic material.”

Whole thing here.UPDATE: IKN is getting a whole bunch of hits from the US Dept of Defense and from all different locations and forts this afternoon. Probably just a coincidence.

Gold Resource Corp (GORO) managed to file a $3.4m profit in 4q14, that's a 6c EPS. And the company's groundbreaking technique for doing it was...

...don't pay your $7.9m tax bill. Wow, why hasn't anyone ever thought of this before? Brilliant business acumen that's only matched by those buying the stock back over $3 this morning, if ever a bunch of shareholders were perfectly matched to their management team, it's on this one. Data here.

PS: This is a good bit from the financials, too. Page 15:

In our opinion, because of the effect of the aforementioned material weakness on the achievement of the objectives of the control criteria, Gold Resource Corporation and subsidiaries have not maintained effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2014, based on criteria established in Internal Control—Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO).

That was signed by KPMG, the independent auditors of GORO. But hey, details right?

Via theexcellent Argy politics blog Los Huevos y Las Ideas, we get the latest opinion poll from Argentina's Poliarquia studio that also has voter intention polls for the big show in October, the Presidential election. There's plenty of detail and flavour, but the headline is on page 11:

Scioli 31%

Macri 25%

Massa 21%

The rest are noise, and there are still 10% in the undecided column. Also notable is that Scioli beats Macri (50/41) in an eventual run-off. Read the full PDF on this link.

Today the deal's been amended. Here's a paste of part of the term sheet:

"Each Unit will be comprised of one common share (“Common Shares”) and one common share purchase warrant (“Warrants”). Each Warrant shall be exercisable for a period of 36 months following the Closing Date at an exercise price of $0.75 per share."

Yup, those half warrants are now full warrants, that 90c strike is now at 75c. It would seem that the proposed issue hasn't been quite as popular as Bobby G thought it'd be, so he it decides to crave popularity by sweetening the pot.

Mind you, I'm still amazed that GMP agreed on this being a bought deal.

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